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Gamer Ted Armstrong
·
SPIAKS OUT!
The Spirit of Hollywood
l
t
seems we have entered a time
when nothing short of the cataclys–
míc, the catastrophic, the gory, and
the sensationally violent will make,
for successful box office In the motion
picture industry. Almost everything one
sees anymore is some typa of spectacle
exploring
every
conceivable human emo–
tion of fear, apprehension, sicknoss.
shock, disgust, and shame - from the
tortuous nightmare ol the sickening
spectacle of
e
sha rk dismembering
human bodies
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the blasting of people
lo bits with guns, of stabbings with
knivea, and bludgeonings with cudgels.
lt seems that's "show business"
theso days: Films witn happy endings
hava seemingly all ñddan off into the
sunset.
There are plenty of blood-and-gore
spectaculars to
choose
from. You cen go
into a theater and
be
convinced you are
sittíng in the midst . of e catacJysmic
earthquake, scared hall out of your wits
thet everything is going to come tum·
bling
10
the ground around you. Or you
can sit through a San Francisco sky·
scraper fire in
Towering lnferno
and
watch screaming peopla plunge through
raging llames, diving down elevator
shafts and
hu~ing
themselves out of
windows to their death on the streets
below. Or you cen Witnass the sickening
dismemberment of a young woman by a
gigantic shark in
Jsws.
1
haven't sean
any
of these pic1ures.
and probably won' t. l'm just reporting
what the critica have said, frorp a pro–
digious number of newspaper end
magazine articles gathared from around
the
wo~d
byour
News
Bureau.
Thosa who heve talked to paople who
havo gone to thase movies - and this
is what amazes me - cteim that they
dea~y
k>ve
to
be
ten-ifiedl They go to
the thaeter with the avowed intention of
being scared out of their wits. although
with1n a protected environment where
it
can' t happan to them - at least not
right then and thare.
1
really don't quite
getjt. But
1
know why the
producers
do
it - dollars make the
~d
go round,
and blood, gore, and disester is where
the dollars are these days. .
You can't really blame the producers
entiraly. however. They' re struggling
frantically to give the public wt\et it
wants.
So it ia vou - the public -
who pay to sea these pic1ures who keep
the
producers
coming
beck
with even
bloodier, more unbelievabty
g~otasque,
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abomínably gore- filled. violence-<idden
motion pic1ures.
What ittakes
10
win Academy Awards
is no.t necessarily winning over some
group of judges by your film'
a
unparel–
leled acting, by the tremendous thougt\t
that went onto it, or by the expartise of
all the technical aspects of ít. Neither is
it judged by what it adds to culture or to
educ:ation , whether it is uplífting.
whether
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leaves one with a rewarding
sense of lulfillment or leads the viewor
toward broader avanues of hígt\er cul·
turel and artistic values
No. lt is simply
a
matter of plain old
dirty greenbacks. That's what makes
the Ac:ademy Awards. The judges
nearly always go for something that was
a tremendous hit at the box offoce . l t –
really -doesn't matter wt\ether it was
dipped in blood, and gore, apooky. or
downright terrifying.
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it was box
offic:<~ ,
it is goingto be nomonated.
There is an unbelievably depraved
picture called "Tommy" which is par·
haps the most debasong
of
all - and, of
course. excellent box office. A little boy.
Tommy, is
just
about driven out of his
mind, becoming literally deaf, dumb,
and blind . His braon sneps when he wot·
nesses his mother and her boyfriend in
the very ect
pi
putting his father to
death. Whíle he
is
i n this helpless stata
of míndlessness with all his senses
gone, Tommy ' s steplather ridículos
him. He is then bumed, held under
water, tossed down a flight
Of
stairs,
torturad by his cousin, molested by a
homosexual uncle, druggad into tempo–
rary onsenity by an employee of his step–
lather, abused, brutalized, and molestad
through the entirety of the movie.
How
1$
ihat for a socialty-redeemi ng
theme7 What kind of mind must e par–
son have to sitthrough such
a
film? Try
this word and see if ít fits. - socK. lt
seems to me the movie-goong world has
got
lO
be SICK.
Another example rather widely re–
portad was a Kung-Fu typa flick called
The
Street Fightor. This film gruesomety
depocted
a
'World so full of blood and
violence and characters so incredibly
and thoroughly evil that
it
was the forst
movie rated
" X' '
for
Íl$
voolence.
And, of course, there os
Godlether 11
which is probably one of the pew lows
in baseness. cruelty. violence.
corru~
tion. and brutahty.
Harkíng back to last year. everyone
has heard the stories about
The Ex–
orcis~
with movie goers péssing out,
vom1t1ng in
the theater. and
sorne
&e>
tually becoming mentally disturbed
lrom what they saw.
•
Have you ever wondered if thera isn't
some greater mind, some greater in–
fluonce tnan just man and his lust and
greed behind all of this7
Your Bible says in
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Coronthians
4 :4
that Satan the Oevil os the god of this
world. Revelation
12
calis him that
"old serpent who deceives all nations."
In Ephesians
2 :2
he os labeled the
"pnnc:<~
of the power of the air, the spirit
that now works in the chi ldren ol dis–
obedience" - a spirit ol destruction . of
unhappi ness. ol morosenass, of vio–
lence. of helplessnessand futility.
In this age of gigantic global prob–
lems threatening the annihilation of the
entire human rece.
thert
is a virtual ex–
plosoon of interest in the occult. in spirit–
ism, witchcralt, and Satanism. And
accompanying it is this unbelievable
preoccupation with v;olence, gore, and
blood. To me there is a very definite
eonnectfon
lt has often been said that you are
what , you eat . Your physical body is
made up of the nutrients that you put
into your mouth. I n the sama way, your
mínd is the sum total of what you think .
Your mental capacity. your balng, your
psyche, your cllaracter is whet you
thonk . The more you let your mind dwell
on crime, violence. blood. guts. and
gore - the more
you
want to go and
leed on human dismemberments. shark
attecks, human inconerations. cataelys–
moc earthquakes. and physocal orgies of
blood and destruction - then the more
damage you are doing to the most
pre–
cious possession you have, your mind.
Little by linte. every day. many Amer–
icens are eating a kind of diet which is
gradually poi soning their bodies. But
there are even more people who are
busity wrecking, ruonong. and dastroyong
their minds by feeding on the incredible
violence that is available today on televi–
s•onand on the silver acreen.
Pemeps one of the sié'kest and most
shocki ng films of all will soon be coming
out.
1t
is d irected by the guy who di·
rected
Godfether 11.
He
now
wants to
have .an ali--star cast portray i n a motion
picture tha most brutalized. shocking
horror stories of the Viet Nam war years
onctuding ae1ual battlefield lootage as
well
as
enaC1ed footage.
Tentatively entitled Apocslypss Now,
the
film
will show U.S . soldoers high on
drugs living on a destroyed temple with
Viatnamese girls treatfng them like ani·
mals. lt will show the massacre of Viet
Cong soldíers, American
G.l.s
relishing
the effects of napalm attacks. and
5o
on.
Will anyone stop this man from
presenting such a picture Which will so
utler1y dastroy and degrade any remain–
ong reputatoon of the U.S. Atmy7
1
doubt it .
1
ima·gine in a year or so you
'11
be able
to go
sea
it . Will you7 The choice is up
to you. Personally
1
wouldn' t park my
automobile across the street from the
theater which would show such gore.
1
don' t wantto polluta my mind with it.
OoYOU?
O
WEEK ENDINO AUGUST
2.
1975